


High School Never Ends

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [7]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Frenemies, Friends With Benefits, Multi, POV Barry Allen, West-Allen - Freeform, rich kids au, this is so random
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 06:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: High school never ends, the saying went, and Barry Allen fucking agreed.





	High School Never Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is, guys. I was supposed to post chapter 21 of my West-Allen WIP but life's been busy... So here's a one-shot from my infamous WA drafts file.
> 
> Warning for language and teenagers talking about sex.
> 
> Title from the song by Bowling For Soup.

_ High school never ends_, the saying went, and Barry Allen fucking agreed.

College was full of the same kind of people he had to deal with at fifteen years old.

In fact, eighty percent of the people he saw on a regular basis at CCU were the same idiots he'd walked with in the hallways of Central City Academy.

Take Tony Woodward and his merry band of jocks, for example. Barry regretted selling them his cheat sheets last year, he really should've let them fail the SAT. The buffoons always stormed the cafeteria after football practice at the same time that Barry arrived from o-chem lab on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Results? Now eating fries made him think of collisions and momenta. Barry was a biochem major, for fuck’s sake, not a _Newtonian physics_ nerd!

Then there was Rebecca "Becky" Cooper (Barry's ex but shhh) and her clique of brainless cheerleaders. The whole world knew that they were making their debut at the next Jewel Ball, and Barry didn't give a shit. He had already pre-ordered the necessary substances to make that night bearable, because of course his mother was part of the organization and wanted him to show his support. Hearing the jumping girls in uniform yell-spell "c-h-e-e-t-a-h" as he crossed the quad separating the dining hall from the library was the most painful part of his weekdays.

Of course, there were decent people from CCA, like Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon. But these two spent half of their day gushing about their respective majors—bioengineering and mechanical engineering, which were very different disciplines so why did they both have engineering in the name?—and spent the other half gazing into each other's eyes. 

(Could they fuck already? Those purity bracelets should’ve been broken at prom. Barry had given Caitlin and Cisco the keys to his parents’ unoccupied penthouse for the night for _ just _ a grand, and how had his best friends thanked him? By emptying the mini bar. Lord Jesus, Barry must have been a terrible person in his previous life—wait, did Christians even believe in reincarnation? Damn it, how was he supposed to save his wretched soul if he held the wrong beliefs?)

Anyways. Yeah, there were some tolerable human beings at CCU. 

The Wells triplets, lunatic as they were, deserved an honorable mention in that category. Barry wasn’t too upset that he had to breathe the same air as the three geniuses again, he’d missed their charismatic eccentricity last year. 

Sherloque, Harrison and H.R. (what the fuck did H.R. stand for, though?) were the future of Central City's elite, and the only people his age he could pretend to enjoy speaking to at formal events so his parents didn’t pull him into their boring adult conversations—where were Caitlin and Cisco during those trying times? Home, those traitors, because their parents were workaholics who didn’t feel the need to monitor their teenage kids. Caitlin was an only child like Barry, _ and _ female, but no one had ever thought that she needed to be stuck at the hips with someone else.

Back to the Wells triplets.

The eldest had single-handedly reduced on-campus criminality at CCU by thirty-five percent in one semester. The freshmen who weren't from CCA thought that the guy with the fake French accent was public safety, clearly unaware that Sherloque thought the role of ‘guard’ below his intellect. No, his specialty was exposing illegal activities in the most humiliating ways his brilliant mind could come up with.

The middle child, Harrison, was going to be the next Stephen Hawking, minus the British accent and the ALS. Barry wondered if the guy was actually paraplegic. He could swear that he'd seen Harrison tap his foot on the footrest of his high-tech wheelchair in rhythm with some catchy pop song last Fourth of July at the Queens (like, how did Oliver get to skip college? Dude got to live in the real world right away. Karma was definitely at play here).

The youngest Wells triplet was famous for breaking the status quo of the high school hierarchy back at CCA. Dude would have lunch with the science nerds one day, would make toasts for the soccer team's midfielders the next day, then distribute copies of the school newspaper in the parking lot on Fridays—wait, actually he _ was _ the chief editor of CCA’s newspaper, that had made sense.

And now H.R. was the first second-year student to be elected President of the Student Senate _ and _ Resident Adviser of the most prized freshman residence hall at CCU.

Which was why Barry was currently suffering through a search in the lobby of the residence he shared with dozens of immature individuals (remember the penthouse he’d rented out to his besties? Well, the plan had been for him to live there during his college years, but what responsible parents would let their kids live alone after he’d lied about having drinking issues?)

"Is that…powdered sugar?" H.R. asked as he sniffed Barry’s best stash.

D-Psicose, a.k.a allulose, extracted from jackfruit harvested in sunny Florida. The human body hasn't evolved to efficiently metabolize the monosaccharide, so guess who could literally sweeten his life without fearing sugar crashes?

That shit was expensive though, and now the one-ounce packet Barry hid in the inhaler he didn’t need was ruined by traces of Wells’ nasal mucus.

“You’re a weird kid, Allen,” H.R. declared as he returned his inhaler and waved him past the lobby door.

Barry shrugged and went on his way. He was about to make a mental note to pre-order more psicose with his father’s account on that dumb but convenient health foods online store when his phone pinged with the familiar tone of Facebook Messenger.

Bartholomew Henry Allen—yes, very unfortunate name, thank God only one person ever called him that—had two Facebook accounts, and since he couldn’t deal with the fake friends on his primary account most days, he mainly used the one he’d created to spy on his parents through their friends’ accounts, because unlike everybody else’s parents, Henry and Nora Allen couldn’t be bothered to use social media. For them the internet was only useful to send emails.

Second on the podium of lamest parents of the century was Joseph ‘Joe’ West, who _ did _ have a Facebook account, but never used it because he could never remember his password.

Mr. West’s memory was just fine, otherwise he wouldn’t be the most acclaimed Jazz ensemble conductor in the country. It was his daughter, Iris Ann West, who’d appropriated his account to stalk her mother’s account, and to contact Barry without the rest of the world knowing that she was online.

Barry unlocked his screen right away, not feeling brave enough to live with the consequences of ignoring her because the weekend was here and she could make his weekend a living hell without much effort.

_‘Can’t believe that I snubbed your stupidly rare sugar all these years. I just made the best brownies in existence!’_

The message had come with an attached picture of indeed perfect-looking brownies, cut directly into a baking pan.

_ Barry’s _ baking pan, because Iris West was as she said herself a ‘bad bitch’ but you could bribe her for anything with brownies (it was a well-guarded secret; somehow Barry was the only person outside of her family to know about her chocolate addiction) so Barry was always ready to prepare a quick batch.

“Wait,” Barry whispered as the implication of the message sunk in: not only was Iris West currently in _his_ apartment (she was supposed to be at her weekly meeting with the journal club) _ and _ had used his baking pan, but she’d also used his _ allulose _ to bake _ brownies_. 

“Iris!” he shouted before even unlocking the door of his tiny college apartment, opening it on his best frenemy sitting at the kitchen island, biting into a piece of brownies with at least the proper reverence owed to allulose.

“Shhh! No one’s supposed to know that I’m here,” she hissed after hurryingly swallowing her bite, flapping her hand around to urge him to close the door.

“I will share your location with Linda if you’ve used up all of my D-Psicose!” Barry threatened as he opened the cabinet where he kept the baking goods. 

There was no sign of the yellow package containing the allulose he’d brought from home, but in its stead was an unopened pink package he'd never seen before. ‘D-Allulose from jackfruit harvested in India, Certified Fair Trade, low calories sugar’ from C-Lean Living.

Huh. Normally he’d go on a diatribe about how globalization was the pillar of the fossil fuel industry, but C-Lean Living was the most ethical food corporation in the world so Barry shut his mouth.

“I’m not suicidal,” Iris pointed out between bites of her D-Psicosed brownie square—technically it was a cuboid, but Barry was a biochem major, not a _geometry_ nerd—”I saw that you were running out of your precious white powder, and knew that with the Jewel Ball coming up your consumption would go up. So, I bought you some. I know, you owe me one."

“I wasn’t running out,” Barry denied, “there was enough for you to bake your brownies! Your brownies made of _ cheap ass _ cocoa powder!”

“Balance in all things, Allen,” Iris said as if she was some wise Shaolin monk. “Seriously though, taste this.”

Barry made a point to drop his backpack, unlace his converses before stepping out of them, drape his jacket over a chair, wash his hands for the whole duration of the happy birthday tune, dry his hands, grab a fork, then lift off a piece of the baked good before bringing it to his mouth.

Holy shit. These _ were _ the best brownies he’d ever tasted, and being Iris’ unwilling Siamese twin since the tender age of three months old, he’d tasted an unfortunate amount of the dessert.

“Come on, tell me that you love me even more for introducing you to a whole new world of possibilities” Iris coaxed. “There are so many more ways to consume sugar than in its pure form.”

“Leave my weird addiction alone, West,” he talked back before finishing the brownie.

_ Fuck_. There was a reason he only took allulose in small quantities. That plus chocolate? His neurons were firing like it was the 4th of July.

Barry hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes to savor the dessert until they opened when he felt Iris hand slip into his hair.

“Iris, _no_,” he said after he carefully swallowed his chewed brownie piece, refusing to look her in the eyes because those eyes were his weakness—scratch that, Iris’ West entire body was his weakness.

“Come on, loser, it’s been a month already,” she lied, because Iris West was a liar, a cheater, probably a killer too, and definitely the love of Barry’s life but he’d let her kill him before he’d admit it out loud.

“You think you can just walk in here…I’m going to report H.R., by the way. Him letting you inside my apartment is a violation of a few residence hall rules.”

“Oh, right, now I guess I can tell you that H.R. isn’t the one who’s been letting me in,” she casually announced as she pasted herself to him, showcasing her low neckline.

Barry hated her manipulative trait so much. She knew what she was doing, giving him such an enticing peek at her boobs.

“I was blackmailing the R.A. manager, he’s the one who encoded my card to be a master keycard for the entire building,” she explained. “Lena found out about his affair with his student assistant and told on him, though, so he got fired. I can lend you the card if you ever want to use it,” she added with a cheshire smile. “Now that the deadline for our bet is passed, we could try one of those big suites that no one is using on the tenth floor.”

“It’s been twenty nine days, West,” he corrected her, “and I’m getting my name carved on the passenger seat of your car if it’s the last thing I do.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she chided him.

Like she could talk. Iris was the one who’d started the bet because she couldn’t stop at just denying that she was a slut when the college’s official gossip blog had pointed out that she had sported hickeys all summer long.

Officially, half of CCU was betting on who was the lucky bastard banging Iris West, legendary homecoming and prom queen of CCA. Student Senate VP Eddie Thawne was a favorite, followed by Scott Evans, the chief editor of CCU newspaper. Even Cisco had put three hundred bucks on Tony Woodward, and Barry had almost revealed his secret just to stop his best friend from entertaining such a disturbing thought.

See, Barry _ was _ the one who couldn’t help leaving bite marks on Iris’ skin, exactly because no one imagined him worthy of being Iris’ lover. While all of Central City was aware of their love-hate relationship—which had peaked in ninth grade, referred to as ‘the year of the West-Allen Cold War'—half of the people who knew Barry was convinced that he was forever stuck in the friendzone, whereas the other half mistakenly thought that Barry was Iris’ adopted brother.

(Wally jokingly introducing Barry as his older brother every chance he got didn’t justify people being dumb enough not to see that Barry always showed up to public events with his own parents)

Barry used to be able to control his desire to bite Iris' unrealistically smooth skin, but the fact that they had graduated from high school and still no one knew about them made him want to leave unspoken clues.

So, yeah, officially there was a bet about who was Iris’ secret boyfriend.

Privately, Iris had bet her car that Barry couldn’t spend a month without leaving a bite mark or a bruise on her body.

Barry didn’t put much value into the mercedes, he didn’t even have a driving license to drive the damn car because _ fuck the fossil fuel lobby. _If he owned the vehicle, though, Iris would have no choice but to let him sit in it. Considering that Linda Park, Iris’ best friend since seventh grade, was the only person to have ever been granted that privilege (not even Wally, who needed rides all the time, was allowed in: he always had to wait on the family chauffeurs.) everyone would notice him.

And if Barry was seen in Iris West’s car, it would be a mere question of time before all Central City assumed that they were a couple. Iris would try to deny the rumors, but people would believe Barry over her because he wasn't known to be a loveable but manipulative bitch. That would serve Iris right for breaking up his relationship with Becky.

(At least Barry _thought_ that Iris was responsible for the end of his first and only official relationship because it had been going too boringly well for Becky to want to end it herself.)

“Come on, Bear,” Iris coaxed him as she lifted on her tiptoes to drop feather kisses on his jaw. “I almost frenched Sherloque Wells at Lois Lane’s party last weekend, that’s how horny I am.”

“Use your toys,” he suggested as he stepped away from her, “I’m not touching you until tomorrow at exactly ten…Iris!”

She’d rubbed a hand on his helpless hard on, that cheater.

In case you hadn’t guessed it, the only way for Barry not to leave a mark on Iris was to not touch her _at all._ He'd risked making out with her the first few days of the bet and every single time Iris had almost manipulated him to go down on his knees. She knew that Barry couldn't give her head without biting her inner thighs, she'd fucking _conditioned_ him to do that.

“Why did you wait until today to try to sabotage me again?” he asked her, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. “I thought that you’d just cancel your car insurance when I won the bet and ride with Hank or Mary until I tired of paying for your parking permit. Spill it out, West.”

“Can’t I just feel like fucking my best frenemy’s brains out?” she whined as she stepped into his personal space once more. “Seriously, today or tomorrow, what's the difference, you’ve lasted longer than I expected, really. You can have my car if you want, you don’t even drive so the whole thing is stupid, that’s why I proposed that bet in the first place.”

Though her delivery was light, Barry found that Iris wasn’t genuinely playful or annoyed, and that raised an alarm in his head.

“Iris, what’s up?” he asked as he gently grabbed her forearm, and he felt guilty for the words that automatically came out of his mouth when he saw her eyes tearing up. “Are you on your periods or are you so moved by the heavenly taste of my D-psicose that you're shedding tears of joy?”

“Fuck you, Allen,” she replied just as instinctively.

“Tomorrow, without fault, you can,” he promised cheekily. “Unless you keep up with the weepy mood, which is a total turn off.”

“Eddie Thawne rejected me,” Iris blurted out.

Barry blinked. 

What?

Edward Thawne was a sophomore at CCU like the Wells, who had transferred to CCA from Keystone City when Barry and Iris were juniors, and apparently Iris had developed a crush on him.

Barry had thought that it was just a silly crush, no big deal. Eddie was pretty, and he and Iris looked annoyingly good walking side by side but really Barry hadn’t bothered being jealous of the guy.

First of all, Thawne wanted to be a cop. Francine West would never approve of Eddie as a son-in-law.

Second of all…What in the actual fuck was wrong with Eddie Thawne?

“You’re sure it wasn’t his twin who played a prank on you, or something?” Barry asked Iris dumbly.

Ray Palmer had done that to Hartley Rathaway two years ago. Hartley had made the crazy mistake of confessing his love in public, but he hadn’t known that Sydney Palmer's twin brother had a hobby of impersonating him. Hartley and Sydney had eventually dated, despite Ray rejecting Rathaway publicly. A few weeks later though, Rathaway had broken up with Sydney, deciding that he’d rather have unrequited feelings for Barry because Barry would never give him false hopes or break his heart.

To each their own madness, man. For Barry, it was clearly his inability to confess to Iris even though he knew that she had to plainly reject him for him to move on to someone else. Someone less emotionally compromising, whom he could marry down the line because unlike Oliver, Barry didn't have the option to die a bachelor.

“Eddie Thawne is an only child, like _ you,_” Iris informed him with a cute wrinkle of her nose. “That’s not my type, is it? What a lame criterion.”

“I’m not your type, I’m your _ standard,_” Barry said jokingly, and panicked a bit when Iris stared at him intently.

Could she actually make the leap between him calling himself her standard and him being helplessly in love with her? It wasn’t that obvious, but Iris had an uncanny talent for digging out the truth. 

“What?” he questioned.

“Eddie said something like that,” she answered. “That I already have you in my life, and that he can’t measure up to the high standard.”

“Let’s ignore the fact that Eddie Thawne’s smart enough to know that we’re fucking,” Barry suggested, “he thinks that_ I’m _ high standard?”

“Bear,” Iris reprimanded softly with a slap to his shoulder. “You’d be a great guy if you weren’t such an asshole, and since you’re only an asshole to _me_, to the rest of the world you _ are _ a great guy.”

“Ow,” he faked pain as he rubbed his shoulder, “and thanks but no thanks, I can’t take your words seriously. No offense—only because it’s me we’re talking about here—but if a dumbass like Thawne is your other choice, I can’t be that great either.”

“You’re a driven, highly disciplined, brilliant young man,” she quickly insisted. “You’re a loyal friend and obedient son, which I know is the only reason why you’ve never tried too hard to kill me. You’re an awkward nerd, granted, but your good looks compensate for your awkwardness. Seriously, my charisma should have rubbed off on you a long time ago. I know you still have hopes that it will, don’t think that I don’t know that it’s the reason why you enrolled in CCU when you could’ve gone to SCU. I’m your unpaid life coach!”

More like Iris was Barry’s sun, so he simply went along the constant gravitational pull that made him spin around her over and over again without any hope of him ever reaching her heart.

Reminder that Barry Allen is a biochemistry major, not an _astrophysics_…Oh, alright, he was a _ nerd_, period. And apparently Iris genuinely thought that he was a great.

Then why didn’t she want to date him? Was he only great enough to fuck in secret?

_ Shut up, Bartholomew, at least she lets you give her orgasms, _ he reprimanded himself in a voice that sounded disturbingly close to Iris'.

“So you want to fuck to feel better about being rejected by _ one _ fish out of…” he started before looking upward in mock reflection. ”How many good-looking guys are on this campus of _ thirty thousand students, _ already?” 

“Shut up, Bartholomew” Iris talked back before returning to the pan of brownies. “You don’t know how it feels to get rejected, mister ‘all the hot blondes want a piece of me’.”

The irony of her statement was fantastic, Barry had to point out. Iris _ had _ rejected him in seventh grade, trashing his valentine chocolate in front of the whole class—to be fair, he’d primarily given her chocolate to oust her secret addiction. She would’ve eaten the whole box in one go in front of her fanclub—then last June when he’d drunkenly asked her out. 

_ “Let’s do something fun that doesn’t require a bed for a change,” _ he’d suggested, too tipsy to control his hopeful eyes, thankfully in a quiet corner of a reception hall at her birthday party. "Come on West, let's go on a real date."

_ “You want to take me on a date? In your dreams, Allen!” _ she’d replied just as drunkenly. 

The rejection had hurt and Barry wasn’t sober enough to fake indifference, so he’d resorted to appearing pissed off, which most of the party goers were used to whenever he and Iris interacted in public. 

Also, Becky Cooper was the only blonde Barry had ever asked out. He had only flirted with Patty Spivot in high school to get back at Iris for breaking his relationship with Becky, and he’d kissed Felicity _ once _ just to see if sparks could fly between two nerds. Kara from Iris’ journal club was just a friend, with no benefits whatsoever because she was Lena Luthor’s future wife.

Maybe Barry would’ve seriously dated Patty if she hadn’t moved out of town, but it wouldn’t have lasted anyways, because blondes were _ not _Barry’s type.

His type was brown skin, darker brown eyes, even darker brown hair, a tiny yet powerfully lean and tantalizingly curvaceous body, and all the other physical attributes attached to the witty soul of Iris Ann West.

“Well, I’ll fuck you so good _ tomorrow_, all weekend even, that you’ll forget this minor embarassment,” Barry promised Iris with a shrug before unlocking his phone to check Facebook. “Seriously, you’ll laugh about it next week and find a way to mock me with it next month.”

Ah, his parents were in New York for that conference of the National Association of Practicing Medical Doctors. How were they practicing if they were all sitting down for hours on end listening to each other whine about the failings of the healthcare system that they helped maintain?

“Hey, when was the last time you went to the spa?” he asked Iris. “I’ll get you a reservation at my mom’s if you want, or we can crash at the penthouse. My parents are stuck in New York for a week, we can binge-watch some stupid rom-coms and sample the newly restocked mini-bar...”

He trailed off because Iris was looking at him weird. Weird, as if she hadn’t expected to see him in his own apartment. As if he’d come out of nowhere, by magic.

“Do I even want to know what you’re thinking about, looking at me like that?” he asked her, suspicious.

“Eddie said—”she started.

“Fuck, Iris, are you actually serious about the guy?” Barry cut her off, now annoyed by her crush. “Ask Evans out, you make him sound even more captivating than Thawne, and I reckon that Evans got a brain so he’ll say yes. Linda bet on him as your secret boyfriend, didn’t she? You’d kill two birds with one stone...Wow, _ no_, that’s animal cruelty, even _ you_'re not that low...You’ll cross two Ts with one stroke of your journalist’s plume, how’s that?”

Barry stopped rambling, because it hadn’t made Iris bulge. She was still staring at him with what could only be qualified as puzzlement.

He didn’t like that. Iris West was frighteningly good at solving puzzles.

“Earth to Iris West?” he called out hesitatingly.

“Eddie said that you like me,” she completed the sentence this time. “Like, really _ like _ me.”

“Didn’t I establish that Thawne’s a dumbass?” Barry countered, feigning indifference while his heart was beating faster than when he finished a morning run—had he not been busy being a full-time nerd, Barry would’ve been a track champion too. He was faster than even Wally, who _ was _ an interstate champion.

“Do you like me, Barry?” Iris asked, and Barry’s heart almost dropped in his stomach when he saw the hopeful look on his crush of almost a decade.

He eyed the pan of brownies. Was it just allulose in there or were those literal _and_ figurative brownies?

“Answer me, Bartholomew Henry Allen,” Iris demanded as she walked back towards him, her eyes piercing his.

“Do I like _ what _ about you, exactly?” he asked in an attempt of mock casualness. “Your ass is great, but I’m a boobs guy and you’re just a B cup so I wouldn't say '_really _ like' as Eddie Thawne claims. I mean, you’re an amazing fuck, twelve out of ten there, so I’m not complaining that much…”

“Barry,” Iris said his name again, her voice adopting the most serious tone he’d heard from her.

“What?” he asked petulantly, hoping against hope that she’d get too annoyed by his attitude to insist on getting an answer.

"Do you like me?" She reiterated the question.

Barry took half a breath to think about another way to escape this situation.

Yes, he was supposed to confess his feelings so she could reject him and he could move on, but not _ today_! He'd like to have a glorious last tumble in the sheets with her first!

"No, I don't like you, Iris," he answered sincerely.

Because Barry Allen didn't _like_ Iris. He _loved_ her, painfully, and _ shit _ his stupid eyes were currently reflecting the truth of that love, and of course future Pulitzer Prize Winner Iris West caught that.

"Barry," she whispered, and was that pity he was hearing? He didn't need her pity. Fuck her pity.

"Okay, we've agreed that D-psicose is the best sweetener in the world, and that I'm going to win our bet, so you're free to leave," he declared as he stepped towards his bedroom.

"What the hell, Bartholomew?" Iris half-shouted behind him as his hand reached out for the door handle. 

She sounded pissed, and _alright_, Barry could work with that, he could argue with a pissed Iris in his sleep, so he turned around and hovered over her smaller frame—how did her fierce spirit fit in that tiny body, for real?—and raised his voice.

"Get out of my fucking apartment or I'll report you for having unauthorized access to this building, West!"

"I'm not leaving until you properly confess your feelings for me, or confirm that you're an asshole by lying that you don't have any!" She spat back.

"Oh, so I'm an asshole for not having feelings for you?" He paraphrased, "why, because I can't not love you? Guess what West, not every person with a dick wants to get into your pants!"

"You've already gotten into my pants, deepshit!" She reminded him loudly, poking his chest with a sharply manicured finger. "In fact, you needed a highly compelling incentive to stay _ out _ of my pants!"

"I don't care about your dumb car!" He let her know, his volume evening out but his tone getting nastier. "And you're the one who couldn't wait until tomorrow to have me into your pants again, right, Miss Slutty Queen of CCA?"

"What the fuck, Barry?" She shouted, channeling her outrage by pushing him with both hands.

"What, you deny that you kept coming for more every time I fucked you this summer?" He questioned her mockingly. "You even said that you wouldn't have survived your internship at CCPN without my good dick…"

"So what, you're a good lay, _ big deal_, Allen!" She retorted. "_I _ made you a good lay! I'll make sure that the next basic bitch you date knows why you're so good at eating pussy, before I get her to dump your sorry ass—"

"_Finally _ you admit to manipulating Becky into breaking up with me!" He commented. "Never thought I'd see the day when you finally confessed to being the _ worst _ bitch in Central City!"

"Yeah well, at least _I_ have the backbone to confess something," Iris talked back, "_you_'re just going to keep avoiding the elephant in the room and be an asshole by calling me the lamest names. 'Miss Slutty Queen'? I can't believe that I said that you're a great guy…"

"If I'm a great guy then _why_ won't you date me?" Barry asked without thinking. "Why should I confess my feelings for you when I already know that you don't want me as your boyfriend?"

That clearly took Iris by surprise, and she froze before frowning at him like he'd grown a second head.

"What?" She uttered quietly.

"Oh, now you're going to deny that you've rejected me _ twice_?" Barry accused her with a dismissive hand wave. "You probably don't remember that time in seventh grade, but what about your birthday party less than five months ago?"

"That valentine request in seventh grade?" Iris asked, remembering quite clearly. "You were going to tell everyone that I'd do anything for chocolate! And at my birthday party? What the fuck, Barry, you were obviously drunk on your ass, how could I take _anything_ you said then seriously?"

"That's just excuses," he argued, shaking his head. "You'd reject me anyways. Now that you know how I feel you just want to get the opportunity to reject me 'properly' to break my no rejection streak. Guess what, West? Not happening!"

"Technically I don't _ know _ how you feel!" She pointed out. "I highly _ suspected_, as in _five minutes ago_ when you were being so sweet trying to comfort me with a weekend long hangout, but _now_ you're being your usual asshole again! Why can't you be nice to me for more than two sentences, Barry?"

"What's the point, it's not like you'd like me better for it!" He returned, rolling out his eyes.

"Why should I like you better when I'm already stupidly _ in love _ with you!" Iris screamed back, her voice breaking on the word love.

What.

What the fuck?

_What the actual fuck?_

"What did you just say?" Barry asked quietly on the outside while his mind was breaking down in a cacophony on the inside.

No. He'd heard wrong. It wasn't possible for Iris to be in love with him. He would've known. He watched her so carefully…

"Do you really think that I'm a slut, Barry?" Iris asked back, equally quietly, and Barry's eyes widened.

"No, of course not, do you even need to ask?" He replied flippantly to hide his guilt.

"Then why would I keep sleeping with you even after you started giving me hickeys _everywhere_, _without complaining_?" She questioned. "Why would I tell people that I'm seeing someone?"

"The hell I know, West!" He answered sincerely. "You're the same person who bet your car on me not being able to hold off giving you those hickeys. You don't make sense most of the time—"

"I was trying to _manipulate_ you into becoming my boyfriend!" Iris confessed, her raised voice shaky. "We've been sleeping together for two whole years and you've never showed any indication that you want a romantic relationship with me...And this bet made me think that you didn't care about me that much because you were just fine not seeing me for _weeks. S_o I tried to date Eddie to make you jealous, only for Eddie to reject me because he's convinced that you have feelings for me too!"

Barry stared at her, disbelief chipping away as he recalled the way Iris always gave him access to a patch of skin to bite on when he was close to climax; the way she never took any pain to hide her hickeys, which had led to the bet—yes, he could believe in Iris trying to manipulate him that way.

"Why did you bet your car though?" He had to ask her. "What does that have to do with making me your boyfriend?"

"You don't drive, so you'd have to sit in the passenger seat to use my car," she answered, surprisingly shy. "I don't let anyone in, except Linda who's blackmailing me because she knows about us two and that I'm in love with you…"

"But, Linda bet on Scott Evans?" He reminded her confusingly.

"She thinks that our relationship is toxic," Iris explained as she deflated against the wall, "that you're just toying with me and will eventually dump me—"

"I'll gladly make her lose money," Barry announced quickly. "So, because I'd have to sit in the passenger seat…"

"Everyone would guess that we're together," Iris completed his sentence. "And you'd think that I'd want you to deny it so you'd announce that we're dating to annoy me."

Was it actually crazy that they'd thought the exact same thing? No, not really. Barry Allen and Iris West had known each other since they were still on breast milk, and had gone to the same schools and the same camps, so their twisted reasoning were the same.

"I'm in love with you Iris," he finally confessed, feeling the proverbial weight get off his shoulders at letting go of his best-kept secret. "I can't help giving you hickeys anymore because I've been in love with you for so long and I haven't been able to tell you so I just…And the fact that no one even suspects that I could be your secret boyfriend…"

"Eddie does," Iris corrected him.

"Okay, shut up about Thawne," he demanded as he got into her space, bringing his hands to her hips to pin her tightly against the wall. "I don't want to hear that name from your lips for the rest of the semester—"

"And what if you _do_ hear me say his name again?" She taunted him with a smirk, slipping her hands up his back to pull him closer.

"I won't, because your lips will be too busy saying _ my _ name," Barry promised confidently right after slotting his leg between hers under her skirt, and dragging her pelvis against his thigh.

"Barry," Iris gasped, tightly gripping the back of his shirt in response.

"Just like that," he whispered with satisfaction before bending over to kiss her lips, not giving her time for a comeback.

And yep, making out led to sex, but this time Barry was allowed to think that he and Iris were _making love _instead of_ fucking._

He left hickeys high on her neck, and for once she left hickeys on his neck too, an alarming amount of them in fact.

"Since I'm _not_ letting you in my car, I have to show that you're my secret boyfriend some other way," she explained as they finished the brownies after polishing off one large pizza _ each_.

"I'm sure that Lena saw you paying the delivery guy dressed in my t-shirt," Barry told her as he fed her the last bite of his brownie, shaking his head fondly when she gushed about it. "She knows everything that happens on this floor, it's almost terrifying. Everyone will know soon enough."

Indeed, no later than that evening, the gossip blog claimed that a 'trusted source' had confirmed that Iris West's secret boyfriend was none other than her archenemy Barry Allen. No one had won the bet.

_ Is it actually true that the West-Allen ship has finally sailed? _ Cisco asked in the group chat he, Caitlin, Felicity, Kara, Ray and Barry had agreed to give the uninspired name 'Nerds'. 

_You're not paying attention Ramon_, Ray replied. _ The West-Allen ship has been cruising for a while now! _

_ Barry, tell Iris that Lena's demanding she answers on our chat, _Kara requested.

_ Tell Luthor that I'm not Iris' errand boy, I'm her boyfriend, _Barry replied, stupidly proud to finally hold that title.

_ Lena said that being Iris' errand boy and being her boyfriend are the same thing, _Kara replied with the 'monkey hiding its face' emoji.

_ Ooh, savage! _ Cisco commented, and Barry laughed before switching off his phone and wrapping his freed arm around Iris, who was sitting across his lap on the couch in front of the too small TV screen—the building had a proper cinema, but for obvious reasons the new official couple couldn't mingle with the kids who were staying on campus for the weekend.

"Cable TV sucks," Iris complained mildly as she tucked her head under his chin. "So many commercials...Let's go to your penthouse tomorrow."

"You're driving?" Barry teased her.

"Hank will gladly drive us," Iris let him know, "since he'll now be able to tell mom that we're together."

"True," he acknowledged.

Quite a few employees of the West and Allen families had caught Iris and Barry in compromising situations over the years, but they were too professional to tell on them.

Not that Barry believed for a second that they didn't gossip between themselves about their employers' kids, or made bets about when the parents would catch on.

After all, high school never ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked something in that big mess! Please let me know!  
Also, someone needs to make a (pro-WA) fanvid of the show based on this song title, using footage from seasons 1-4. Please and thank you.


End file.
